The 9 Most Influential American Punk Bands That Are Still Worth Listening To

Black Flag (Los Angeles)

Between 1978 and 1986, they burned through four singers and tried everything from vitriolic hardcore to turgid jazz-rock. But they peaked in '81, with future man of letters Henry Rollins on vocals and noise virtuoso Greg Ginn on scouring-pad guitar.

Punk as gutter Americana, set off by Billy Zoom's Dumpster-diving rockabilly guitar and the fragile-truce harmonies of John Doe and Ene Cervenka. As primally poetic as the Doors, as seamy as a dime novel.

Very, very serious young men selling furious won't-get-fooled-again anti-anthems while telling us that it was cool not to drink or do drugs. Singer Ian MacKaye went on to start Fugazi (with Guy Picciotto and Brendan Canty from the similarly worshipped D.C. group Rites of Spring, progenitors of what's come to be known, just a tad annoyingly, as emo-core).

Four U.S.-born Rastas introduced funk dynamics to the bleeding-from-the-eyes fury of hardcore, eventually going on to influence a generation of baggy-shorts-wearing dreadlocked white kids with their groundbreaking funk-metal record, I Against I.

Between 1978 and 1986, they burned through four singers and tried everything from vitriolic hardcore to turgid jazz-rock. But they peaked in '81, with future man of letters Henry Rollins on vocals and noise virtuoso Greg Ginn on scouring-pad guitar.